Corporate welfare-plank-Rauterkus
Category:Platform Planks from Mark Rauterkus Planks * All Corporate Welfare concludes. :Pittsburgh needs to end all corporate welfare at this time because: :: The public treasury has no more money to give away. :: The public trust has been lost. :: Past corporate welfare deals have failed. The public benefits from past handouts were hyped promises. Past deals made marginal cost-benefit gains for the local economy. :: The Pittsburgh marketplace needs time to heal, without any corporate welfare, if the city ever expects to rebound its economy. * Don't even ask. Developers are not expected to approach a candidate nor elected official who frowns upon corporate welfare deals. The rush and push for handouts for their projects is going to go elsewhere. Developers seeking handouts will not waste their time getting cozy with an expressed enemy of corporate welfare. Developers and land-speculation investors do make generous campaign donations for candidates and officials who are going to be warm to their special interest needs. :In 2001, campaign donations came to friends of the Mon Valley Toll Road. Really, land speculators who would benefit from the building of the Mon Valley Toll Road made significant donations to local candidate campaign funds to insure that they'd support the building of the road. :In the mid 1990s, plenty of money in the form of campaign contributions went to candidates and parties in Harrisburg and locally who were in favor of gambling. Now Pennsylvania has gambling and the state party funds are flush with cash. Do enlighten. Apart from the beggars and takers who ask for handouts from the government are the makers of wealth. These people and businesses make a different breed of developer and entrapreneur. Perhaps they'll make new whistle-blower conversations to provide business insights and seek assistance and insurances against corporate welfare. Business owners investing, opening and expanding do not want new competitors with government money and subsidies. No more TIFs. Pittsburgh can't allow for foolish spending within its borders and within the region. Wasted, wrong-headed spending from county, state, and federal branches of government need to be understood, decloaked, reasoned and terminated. Questions and under-the-table deals are sure to surface. We need to sniff them out and put an end to them. Money can't go down the drain even when it comes from authorities and public agencies (VA, NIH) beyond a direct city-budget impact. Even foundation dollars needs to be curbed and stopped when they are not proven to be of the utmost help. Deals that are in the pipeline need to be halted. Deals that have been cut in the past need to be evaluated again. Deals that are done need to accounted for with a full inventory of costs and benefits. Campaign goal: End corporate welfare. Adios As the handouts from Grant Street end, the economy throughout the region will respond. Once we, the people, take back our markets and act with prudence and discipline, then local investors and competition will swarm to the area. Those who crave handouts, individual and corporate, can go elsewhere. Taking the place of greed-filled developers, we'll see others who understand and value hard work and performance. Fair competition can shape our choices. :Tom Murphy pushed to sell land to UPMC for its Sports Performance Complex on the South Side. Later Tom Murphy cried that too much of Pittsburgh's land was tax exempt. If Murphy felt that the non-profits are hurting the city's budget, then Murphy should not have been so quick to give away the city's land to the non-profits. :The Carnegie Science Center on the North Shore had lavish building expansion plans that included a water garage for the World War II submarine. A plan called for an indoor submarine garage cut from the river. Spending millions to shelter an antique weapon of mass destruction while our kids have no Rec Centers nor swim pools was another bone-headed project. Thankfully, that imploded on itself. Too many pseudo public-private ventures are too wacky. Pittsburgh needs a wise extravagance, not dumb extravagance. Aggressive teamwork without corporate welfare. * No corporate welfare. * No foolish spending here. * We all need to be watching all of the governmental agencies. We need to checks and balance against foolish spending at all levels. For example: The VA The VA Hospital that operates in Oakland is getting some major changes. Certain departments are moving to Aspinwall and others to Highland Park. Moving medical services outside of Oakland might not be a prudent idea. Try to get from the west end to Aspinwall. However, if we get the light rail to go to Oakland, rather than the North Side, then it makes more sense to keep certain services in Oakland. This is a VA issue, but it is also a city issue. The VA is moving because the parking situation at the VA Hospital in Oakland is so bad. We can build a parking garage for Lazarus, a downtown department store, but we can't find it within our realm of possibilities to talk about what's needed in Oakland? The teamwork vacuum needs to be filled with new leadership. For example: PPS Pittsburgh Public Schools has built new school buildings and used eminent domain to take property away from owners who didn't want to sell and who didn't feel as if they were treated properly by PPS. The Mayor needs to work with the schools in many instances. This platform calls for close teamwork with PPS as well as CCAC, the universities, the private schools and even adult education elements. North Shore Amphitheater The Rooney family wanted a music venue near Heinz Field. PA's Governor, Ed Rendell put a The amphitheater has opened a can of worms. CMU CMU is a great institution of higher learning. However, sadly, it is much like an island. We can build better bridges among the campus, its students, faculty and community. Sprawl Urban sprawl conjures up an image of haphazardness, lack of control, an attitude of let-things-fall-where-they-may. The Sierra Club is against sprawl. This campaign thinks again about sprawl. The People have voted with their pocketbooks. A vast majority want a house and a yard, the 'American Dream' to raise their families. This majority has decided to try to give their kids more than their parents were able to give them. They have decided to leave the amenities of the more densely populated urban areas for the suburbs, judging that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. To force the disadvantages upon the majority who have so voted, by trying to stop what has been characterized as Urban Sprawl on other people, is no better than other people trying to force a viewpoint on others. Nobody likes to be forced to do something they don't want, and where it is done, it backfires in the long run and creates a larger problem than was perceived in the first place. The free market will win in the end. Attempts to control it will unavoidably fail. We must instead study and observe where free market forces are going, and direct the expenditure of public money and effort to meet the market, not resist it. Phili's Comcast deal was pushed by Ed Rendell. In November 2005, Governor Ed Rendell wanted a $35-million annual subsidy for Comcast in Philadelphia. The Governor's acts spoke to the eastern bias. PA's House Bill 1321.